.44-caliber Bullet Killed Actor

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- The death of actor Brandon Lee in a filming incident took a startling turn on Thursday when police disclosed the actor was killed by what was apparently a .44-caliber bullet.

What appeared to be a bullet was discovered lodged near Lee`s spine during an autopsy, calling into question the safety procedures on the set.

Detectives said that they are still treating Lee`s death as an accidental shooting. They said they recovered the .44-caliber handgun from the movie set along with what appeared to be two spent casings, one from a blank round and the other from a ``dummy`` bullet used in the filming.

In filming, ``dummy`` rounds, which look like real bullets, are placed in the cylinder of guns for close-up shots so they appear to be loaded.

Police said it will be a week before laboratory analysis will be complete to determine the specific nature of the material found in Lee`s body.

Lee, 28, was the son of the late martial arts star Bruce Lee. The accident occurred on Soundstage 4 of Carolco Studios, where the $14 million action film, The Crow, was entering its final week of production.

In the scene in which he was killed, Lee walked through a doorway carrying a bag of groceries and was shot one time by actor Michael Massee, playing a villain.

At the moment of the shooting, Lee pulled a trigger hidden behind the grocery bag to set off a ``squib,`` a small explosive device designed to create the appearance of the sack bursting when struck by a bullet.

After setting off the squib, Lee collapsed on the set, bleeding profusely from the right side of his abdomen. He was rushed to New Hanover Regional Medical Center, where he died after five hours of surgery and after receiving 60 units of blood.

Initially, there was speculation that the explosion of the squib so close to Lee`s body caused his injury.

But Det. Rodney Simmons of the Wilmington Police Department, who was the first officer at the scene, said Lee`s injury appeared to him to be a gunshot wound. Simmons said the detectives reviewed videotape made of the scene during filming, which also indicated that Lee`s right side was in line with the angle of the pistol that was fired for the scene.

Simmons said that when he arrived at the set, technicians had unloaded the gun and placed it and the spent shell of a blank round into a plastic bag. Simmons said that in talking to a special-effects man, whom he would not identify, he learned that one of the dummy shells in the gun case was missing the slug from its tip.

Simmons said his interview of the special-effects person raised the possibility that the gun was loaded with the dummy bullet for a close-up shot and when the gun was unloaded the slug had become dislodged from the dummy shell casing and the tip had remained in the cylinder or the barrel.

When the blank round was then inserted, the pistol could have discharged like a loaded firearm.